Hazy Memories
by ArgentumAurora
Summary: Reiner wakes up to company in his apartment, and a hangover. He, Bertolt, and Annie must figure out what happened to them last night.


**Title:** Hazy Memories

 **Pairing:** Reiner x Bertholdt x Annie (I've started calling them Reitholie because I don't know their proper ship name haha) (I've heard them called the Titan Trio and Traitor Trio. I like both.)

 **Time Limit:** None

 **Prompt:** Fuzzy Morning After or "What happened last night?" (via Tumblr's bleep0bleep prompt generator, a very valuable resource)

 **Notes:** Part of my Daily One-Shot thing, which is no longer a very daily thing. This ship kept inexplicably showing up on my Pinterest dash, and I kind of really like it. Ok, not kind of; I think it's pretty great. There might be some spoilers from the manga, so don't read unless you don't mind or you already know what happened to Annie, Reiner, and Bertolt in the Battle of Trost. Thanks for reading, and enjoy!

Reiner did not usually wake up to company. Sometimes, Bertolt would crash at his place, but it rarely ever happened, and even when it did, the other man was usually gone before Reiner opened his eyes. This morning, however, not only was Bertolt in Reiner's bed, but his shirt was missing, he was still asleep, and he had an arm and a leg lazily thrown over Reiner.

 _What the fuck happened last night?_ Reiner wondered, moving a hand up to shield his eyes against the bright light streaming through the open window. His head hurt and his eyes felt sensitive, as if he had a hangover. _Great, just what I needed._

With his brain moving at a snail's pace thanks to his hangover, it took Reiner another minute to realize the likely reasoning behind why Bertolt was sleeping in his bed, half naked. _Ah, fuck, did I really…?_

Reiner ran his eyes over Bertolt's exposed chest. Sure enough, small scratches and red patches decorated his skin. _How much liquor did I drink last night?_ Reiner wondered, in a state of shock.

That was when the other unusual detail jumped out at Reiner. He never slept with the window open. Not ever. By the looks of things, Bertolt hadn't gotten out of bed to open it, and Reiner had no memory of opening it. _How did the window get open?_

 _I need to sort this out,_ Reiner thought. With a slight twinge of reluctance, Reiner wiggled out of Bertolt's grasp, waking the other man in the process. Bertolt's green eyes opened halfway, blinking to clear themselves as they trained themselves on Reiner's face.

"Reiner?" Bertolt mumbled. "What…"

"I'm sorry, Bertolt. Are you okay?" Reiner replied, combing a hand nervously through his blond hair.

"Sore, and a hangover," Bertolt answered in the slow, slurred voice of someone who'd just woken up. His eyes drooped shut, but Reiner could see that the other man wasn't asleep.

Reiner sighed. "I think we got pretty drunk last night."

Bertolt suddenly seemed to catch on to Reiner's meaning, and sat up with a jolt. He immediately pressed a hand to his temples, and Reiner could see him sway a little bit, his balance unstable. "Did we…?"

"I think so."

They were both quiet for a long minute. Reiner always swore when he had a hangover that he'd never drink again, but it had never worked. Everyone made stupid decisions when they were drunk, but this was a whole new level of stupid for Reiner. It wasn't just last night that he couldn't remember, but some of yesterday afternoon as well.

Bertolt suddenly stiffened. "You know what else, Reiner? We're not alone."

Now, Reiner noticed that his apartment was not silent like usual, but instead there was a soft sizzling in the background that sounded suspiciously like something being cooked on the stove. He was suddenly reminded of the open window. Bertolt was right; someone else was here.

Reiner rolled off the king-sized bed, leaving the covers hopelessly askew, and immediately regretted getting up so quickly. While he waited for his head to stop spinning, he heard Bertolt get up and hastily stumble into the en suite.

Slowly, Reiner stood up and made his way out of his bedroom and toward his kitchen. He could only hope for now that this third person hadn't been drawn into… whatever had happened between him and Bertolt last night, although his gut told him that the chances they hadn't been involved were practically nonexistent.

Reiner stepped into the kitchen. There was a girl at the stove, blond-haired and much shorter than Reiner. Her back was turned as she tended to something sizzling on the stovetop, and she didn't acknowledge Reiner's presence.

"Annie," Reiner said, only the tiniest bit surprised. Really, if anyone else were going to be in his apartment at this hour besides himself and Bertolt, it would be Annie, a close companion of both men, even if she was a bit younger.

Even when Reiner entered the kitchen and stood beside her to see what she was cooking, Annie made no move to acknowledge him other than a quick, "Good morning." She was making scrambled eggs. Cooking seemed an awfully domestic skill for Annie.

Bertolt arrived then, disheveled in appearance and smelling slightly of vomit. He stopped and stared at Annie for a moment upon catching sight of her, which was about as much shock as they were likely to see from Bertolt. The appearance of his friend made Reiner wonder if Annie had a hangover too.

Now that it was on his mind, Reiner discreetly scanned Annie for any outward signs that she'd gotten caught up in last night's events. There were a few scratches on her, but she seemed relatively unscathed compared to Reiner (who was sporting a number of red marks himself) and Bertolt.

"Did you make enough for us too?" Bertolt asked, sitting down at Reiner's kitchen table. It was a rickety piece of brown wood, worth no more than a handful of hours at minimum wage, but Bertolt deemed it a workable pillow and leaned forward onto its surface, closing his eyes against the kitchen's warm lighting.

Annie glanced back at Bertolt, then, speaking clearly to Reiner, said, "If you want eggs, cook them yourself."

 _Well, she seems like her usual self,_ Reiner thought as he pulled the eggs out of the refrigerator and began to prepare them for scrambling. Afraid that his whirling thoughts might get the best of him, Reiner couldn't help speaking up as he cracked a handful of eggs. "So what happened to us?"

Bertolt grunted in response; he would be of no help in this situation, clearly. If he didn't know her so well, Reiner might not have noticed the subtle way the younger girl tensed up. Annie stopped prodding at her eggs for a moment and stared straight ahead at the apartment wall instead. After another minute, Annie seemed to get her wits together and say, "I'm not surprised you two were too drunk to remember. You might not want to."

Reiner stirred his eggs irritably with a fork. Of course, Annie was too young to have been drinking with Bertolt and Reiner. They were only two years apart, but it was a significant two years. _Then she remembers everything?_

"Please tell us, Annie," Bertolt spoke up. He was sitting up at the table now, looking perfectly normal, which caused Reiner to suspect that his friend's nausea was coming in waves.

"We broke half of Marco," Annie replied bluntly. Reiner froze, and whirled around to stare at the blonde. She wouldn't turn around and meet his eyes. Whether that was shame or her trademark stubbornness was hard to say. _We… broke half of Marco?_

And then the memories of yesterday came flying back. He and Bertolt and Annie throwing punches in an alley behind the grocery store, Marco slumped and bleeding against the wall with his arm at an angle that made Reiner shudder even now, rage so consuming that it stole all logic, and apparently memory, from him… No wonder he and Bertolt had gone drinking. And they'd left Annie, who couldn't drown the memories in alcohol, to deal with it on her own. Reiner felt his stomach turn over uncomfortably, and considered running for the nearest john.

Bertolt muttered something along the lines of "Oh my god," just loudly enough to be heard. Annie removed her eggs from the stove, dumping them onto a plate and leaving the burner and pan open for Reiner's use. _I can't even remember why we beat him up like that. Hopefully…_

 _Hopefully Marco's okay._

Reiner began to cook his eggs. "Why?"

Annie took her time in pulling out a chair across from Bertolt and sitting down before taking the liberty of answering Reiner. "He found out."

This was almost as much of a shock as finding out that Marco probably needed several hospital treatments now, thanks to them. Reiner and Bertolt had tried to keep their identity in working for a secret organization a secret, but Annie, with her tough attitude and warrior personality, had wormed her way into their trust, and was the only other one who truly knew their identities. She'd even been willing to join them in their mission. Marco was an unknown variable; they didn't know if they could trust him. Even if the memory of Marco slumped against that wall was eternally branded in Reiner's mind, at least he understood now that his actions had been necessary to keep their secret safe.

Bertolt hadn't taken the news well either, and was slumped on the table again. Reiner recalled now the previous times he'd seen Bertolt with a hangover; he dealt with them horribly, usually requiring the entire day, and sometimes an additional day, of lying on the couch sleeping and drinking water to return to normal.

Annie was eating her eggs, her face stoic and unreadable. Reiner would've tried to guess her thoughts and find something to say to soothe the three of them if his eggs hadn't sizzled to remind him that he was not supposed to burn them. He poked at the eggs for another minute before taking them off the stove. The kitchen was uncomfortably void of conversation all the while.

"Is Marco okay?" Bertolt finally asked. The scraping noise of Annie's fork against her plate paused before she replied, "I don't know."

Reiner sighed. He dished a plate of eggs for himself and for Bertolt, then dumped the frying pan he'd used to cook in the sink and joined his two companions at his cheap kitchen table. Sitting down between the two, Reiner was reminded of the other thing he wanted to ask Annie.

"Annie, what else happened last night?" Reiner asked.

Annie was rarely one to be seen smiling, laughing, or showing any kind of positive emotions, but this brought the edges of her lips curling slightly upward. The nineteen-year-old brushed a strand of blond hair out of her face. "You two got drunk."

Reiner made a small noise of irritation. "Other than that?"

Now Annie really seemed pleased with herself. Even if her face held little more than the ghost of a smile, her blue eyes sparkled slightly.

"I'll leave that part to your imaginations," Annie replied, her tone carrying a hint of triumph. She stood up, having finished her plate of eggs, and went into the kitchen to look after the dishes.

"Will you tell us eventually?" Bertolt asked indignantly. Reiner had been about to demand the same thing.

With her back turned to them as she washed dishes, Annie said, "Maybe."

 _Stubborn brat,_ Reiner thought with a smile. It was really more an affectionate term than an insult, but Reiner was pleased that she hadn't given them a flat-out no.

His mind wandered back to Marco. This would be the first time Annie had helped them in a mission, even if it wasn't official and was only a security measure. And her presence at this hour in the morning could indicate only one thing: things were changing between him, Bertolt, and Annie. Their relationship was perhaps moving beyond that of a convenient business team-up. But, when he thought about it, Reiner didn't feel at all badly about that. Waking up with these two was something he could get used to doing more often. However, next time, he could do without the hangover.


End file.
